Some details on SiS Xabre II

Though we haven't seen much action from cards based on the original Xabre chip, SiS continues development work on a next generation DirectX9 compliant part called "[URL=http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1037987037]Xabre II[/URL]". The original Xabre which was originally touted to compete with NVIDIA [URL=http://www.techspot.com/reviews/hardware/xtasy_gf4mx440/index.shtml]MX series[/URL] has certainly seen some [URL=http://www.techspot.com/reviews/hardware/fic_radeon9000pro/index.shtml]competition from ATI[/URL] as well, the low-end is a tough market, indeed:

SiS Xabre II VPU features 8 rendering pipelines with one TMU per each, just like the RADEON 9700 and the GeForce FX, the features SiS calls “Octapipe”. The unit is due to come in the first half of next year and some sources even allude that the part will be unveiled in February, but I should make it clear that at the moment there is no official information about this matter.

I wouldn't mind seeing more competition, just hope this won't be another case of "too little, too late".